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Are you a new Instructional Technology Specialist or Instructional Coach? Here's my #1 tip for you this year...

First of all, welcome back to a BRAND NEW YEAR ... a FRESH START ... a DO-OVER! I hope you had a wonderful summer and that you are ready to get back in the saddle again......... :) I have been back at work for 2 weeks now and the cobwebs are finally cleared and my head is back in the game. I hope you all have an AMAZING year and that we can continue to learn together!

If you are a new Instructional Technology Specialist this year, I have some advice for you. I was thinking about this on the way to work this morning...

Make your own quote at recite.com!

When I was newly out of the classroom and in my first ITS role, I don't think I did this. I think I was so fired up with ideas and knowledge and tips and tricks and I just started force feeding it to anyone who would listen (and even some who didn't!). Over the years, I have found that teachers want to TALK. They want us to LISTEN. And when we can find an organic place to interject an idea or tip or trick, then it feels natural and not contrived.

I challenge you to BUILD RELATIONSHIPS with your teachers FIRST. Ask about their kids, their summer, their new car, their new shoes ... and really listen when they talk. Give them your FULL attention and follow-up on the personal things. THEN you can start asking them about their classroom needs and how you can help. If they trust you on a personal level first, then they will trust you on a professional level, as well.

If you ever need to bounce ideas or brainstorm or troubleshoot or visit ... feel free to give me a shout! #togetherwerebetter

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If you're not familiar with Autocrat, it's a document merge script. Pretty much, what that means is that you can have the data from any spreadsheet populated into a Doc template and saved to Drive or emailed out. What this means for me is that I can have someone fill out a Google form and have their input sent to a beautifully formatted, print-friendly document. So many uses!

If you would like to try this out for yourself, YOU CAN! You can fill out the form below to have a sample holiday mad lib automatically emailed to you! :)

First, fill out this form: http://goo.gl/DnTN7fWhen you click submit, you will receive an email with your PDF mad lib. :)
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If you missed this gem shared by Stephen Anderson and Gwyneth Jones last week on Twitter, you're definitely going to want to check it out now! Are your kids tired of the same old book report format? Let them try a Twitter Book Review! Not only does this method teach students to be concise, but it also uses a current, up-to-date style of writing that our kids are familiar and comfortable with. Students can use this character counter to make sure their book review is under 140 characters. Anderson's idea: have students submit their Book Review Tweet in a Google Form. Genius!

I did this activity with my teachers (to try and encourage them to do it with their kids!) and it turned out awesome! I used a Google form to collect the responses and then mail merged them into a Word doc to create the "tweet bubbles" for a bulletin board. The staff and students have loved looking to see what the teachers at our school are reading! And our collection is still growing!